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Wheels turning for Logistics

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Momentum Logistics, a transport company based in Sharjah, plans to buy new lorries and boost staffing this year as it expands its regional network in the GCC, Turkey, Pakistan and Iraq.

The firm, a unit of the Gulftainer Group ports company, provides outsourcing services for companies, called third-party logistics, including warehousing and managing companies' supply chain of parts and equipment.

"For all of our international areas, we will be enhancing for the next two to three years with manpower and assets on the ground," said Keith Nuttall, the group commercial manager of Gulftainer.

It is considering building inland container depots - places where containers are stored and redistributed on to lorries - in places such as northern Iraq and Turkey to take advantage of growing economic activity there, he said.

Inland container depots "are already in place in the GCC, in particular in the UAE, and we are looking at other solutions in northern Kurdistan and in other areas," he said.

"We are evaluating several options at the moment and I'm sure we will go ahead with at least some of them."

Sharjah's Inland Container Depot is a major base of Momentum Logistics' haulage operations with more than 100 lorries and 200 trailers.

The site is also the location of a vehicle maintenance and repair facility. The Sharjah depot also features a container repair depot and several dozen warehouses.

Momentum often works in partnership with its parent company, Gulftainer, and Mr Nuttall said this could prompt Momentum to follow Gulftainer's stated plans to enter the Russian market.

"Momentum will get into there in due course," he said.

The firm was created in 2008 at the onset of the global downturn, and last year it opened an office in Erbil, northern Iraq, to handle project cargo for companies and also to handle the shipment of raw materials.

Meanwhile, Mr Nuttall said he was bullish on Momentum's existing businesses in both Pakistan and Turkey, which he said was a nation with a huge internal market that was also well placed geographically.